{"id":218433,"date":"2025-10-12T05:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T05:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/218433\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T05:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T05:29:10","slug":"of-buffalo-bones-and-bison-dreams-life-on-wyomings-biggest-bison-ranch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/218433\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Buffalo Bones And Bison Dreams \u2014 Life On Wyoming\u2019s Biggest Bison Ranch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up on the state\u2019s largest bison ranch south of Gillette, Wyoming, Erin Flocchini had a wonderful childhood. Starting with an unusual teething toy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know how they make those little plastic, not toys, but like chewing things for babies, and they put them into the freezer and then give them to babies while they\u2019re teething?\u201d she told Cowboy State Daily. \u201cWell, ours used to be buffalo bones. They\u2019d put a bone in the freezer from a steak or whatever that they\u2019d cook. And, when we were teething, we\u2019d get buffalo bones for our teething treats.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a childhood tale Flocchini has found few can top. But it\u2019s also one she used to take for granted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t real into ranch life when I was a kid,\u201d she admitted. \u201cWhich I now regret when I see young kids driving tractors and fencing and doing all that. I mean, they might not think it\u2019s fun. But I think it\u2019s fun now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flocchini remembers making fun of people who pulled over on the side of the road to take pictures of her family\u2019s bison. It just seemed odd to her that people would take photos of something she saw every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I grew up and found out that not everyone has bison in their backyard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Or so many of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At 55,000 acres and a herd that has ranged as high as 5,000 head at times, Wyoming\u2019s Durham\u00a0Ranch is among the largest and oldest bison operations in America.\u00a0Their bison were also sourced from Yellowstone National Park, making each steak from one of these magnificent beasts a unique slice of Cowboy State history.<\/p>\n

Flocchini doesn\u2019t laugh anymore when she sees tourists pulling over on the side of the road to photograph her family\u2019s bison. She\u2019s come to realize just how cool that really is.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, every time I see them, it brings joy to my heart,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"PatPat Thompson looks at a bison and talks about the Durham Ranch during a tour with Cowboy State Daily. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"TheThe pun at the Durham Ranch’s gift shop invites guests in to browse memorabilia, or buy some bison meat. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"PettingPetting the fluffy cows is still unwise at the Durham Ranch where about 2,000 bison descended from Yellowstone National Park stock roam free. But tourists can buy one of these stuffed bison to pet instead in the Durham Ranch’s gift shop. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"ThisThis little barn or shed greets visitors to the Durham Ranch south of Gillette, where around 2,000 head of bison roam. The ranch ships its meat all over the country. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"TheseThese signs were misprinted, but the family kept them anyway, and now they’ve become historic. The Flocchini family actually bought the Durham ranch in 1965. Buffalo were already on the ranch when they purchased it. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"AA mural of the Durham Ranch is painted on one of the sheds. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)Arrow leftArrow right\u00a0The Wright Family Homestead<\/p>\n

The Durham Ranch was first homesteaded by the Wright family, from which the nearby town also takes its name.\u00a0<\/p>\n

R.A. Wright opened the area\u2019s first post office sometime in 1906, according to Wright family descendant Nolene Wright, so she believes the ranch probably existed by at least then, too.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t become official though, until 1911, which is when the homestead paperwork was filed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a pretty cool historic rock house that was built in the early 1900s, which is just one of the historic buildings still on the ranch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not entirely clear who brought bison to the ranch, but Flocchini\u2019s family history maintains that the bison had already arrived when ancestor Armando Flocchini Senior bought the ranch in 1965.<\/p>\n

Armando immigrated to America from Italy in the late 1800s and made his living as a butcher in San Francisco. Eventually, in the 1930s, he bought the Durham Meat Company. Then, when he bought the Wright family homestead in 1965, he renamed it the Durham Ranch, to match his meat business.<\/p>\n

Premium specialty meats were Armando\u2019s focus then, something the family has continued until the present\u00a0day, eventually\u00a0buying Sierra Meat and Seafood in Reno, Nevada.<\/p>\n

Sierra Meat sources all its unique products \u2014 elk from New Zealand, wild boar from Texas, bison from Wyoming \u2014 from small family ranches that follow sustainable, regenerative agriculture practices, and who prioritize the health of the land and its animals.<\/p>\n

Erin\u2019s father, John Flocchini, sums it up this way. What makes animals happy on the Flocchini family\u2019s side of the fence makes customers happy on the other side of that fence.<\/p>\n

The Durham Ranch sells its meat all over the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in all 50 states,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cBut everything that is born on the ranch stays on the ranch, until the day they go to slaughter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meat is processed in Colorado then marketed through Sierra Meat, which handles getting the product on all of the best fine-dining plates in America.<\/p>\n

Several Wyoming restaurants also carry meat from the ranch. In the local area, these include Pokey\u2019s\u00a0Barbecue and\u00a0Smokehouse in Gillette, Hank\u2019s Roadside\u00a0Bar and\u00a0Grill in Wright, the Prime Rib\u00a0Restaurant and Wine Cellar\u00a0in Gillette, 77 Steakhouse and Saloon in Hulett, and the Open Range Steakhouse in Wright.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are also a number of restaurants in Jackson and other places across Wyoming that carry bison meat from the Durham Ranch bison Erin Flocchini said.<\/p>\n

Her Place In The World<\/p>\n

And while Erin may have once laughed at tourists for stopping to take photos of her family\u2019s fluffy cows, one thing she never did was laugh at dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cBison is delicious,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I have always loved it. Every cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erin isn\u2019t sure what the future holds for her on her family\u2019s ranch, but she\u2019s glad to be back where the bison roam free and where kids can jump off barn roofs into the snow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It feels like she\u2019s returned to her place in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to say I\u2019m kind of like the lowest on the totem pole, where I\u2019m still learning,\u201d she said. \u201cAll the men around me right now have a lot more experience and knowledge than I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most days, she\u2019s smiling and waving behind the wheel of a truck hauling a mineral buffet right to wherever the bison are roaming at the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also particularly enjoying her family\u2019s bison tours, which attract about 1,000 guests every year. It\u2019s one of the best chances in the state for people to get close to bison that originated from Yellowstone, in a way that\u2019s still safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pretty much drive up into the middle of the herd,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we\u2019re all quiet. And we stay close to the bus. People take photos, and it\u2019s a beautiful experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still no petting the fluffy cows, though, she added with a laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou still have to respect them,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re more athletic than you might think. They\u2019re fast and they can jump. They can turn in the blink of an eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9e Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growing up on the state\u2019s largest bison ranch south of Gillette, Wyoming, Erin Flocchini had a wonderful childhood.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-218433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}